These styles include wines that are famous for their characteristics, which is why they are known as special categories
Crusted Port
These are blended wines that, when they are approved, present an extremely intense colour and are fullbodied. They must be kept in bottle for at least three years before being sold. During this time, Crusted Ports throw a deposit in the bottle (the crust), hence its name.
Vintage Port
Considered by many as the jewel in the Port Wine crown, this is the only Port that ages in bottle. Produced from the grapes harvested during a single year and bottled two to three years after the vintage, it develops gradually for 10 to 50 years before it is drunk. The charm of Vintage resides in the fact that it is attractive at pratically all stages of its life in bottle. During the first five years, it retains the intense ruby of its original colour, exuberant aromas of red fruits and wild berries and a taste of black chocolate, all of which is balanced by strong tannins that make it the perfect accompaniement to desserts that are rich in chocolate. After ten years in bottle, in addition to its throwing a light deposit, Vintage takes on garnet tones and attains a delicious plenitude of ripe fruit aromas and flavours. As the wine matures, its colour turns a rich golden brown and its fruit acquires a greater subtlety and complexity and the deposit that it throws becomes thicker.
Single Quinta Vintage Port
These Vintages are unique in that they are not only the product of a single harvest but also of a single quinta, or wine estate, which makes them truly exceptional.
Ruby Style: Bottled matured
Ruby Reserve Port
Full-bodied, rich and deep ruby red, these wines are frequently the product of a selection of the best Port Wine made each year, blended together to create a young, powerful, fruity and intense wine that is also rounded and versatile.
Late Bottled Vintage Port (LBV)
This is a Ruby Port from a single year, chosen for its extremely high quality and bottled after ageing for four to six years in wood. Most of these Ports are ready for drinking when they are purchased, but some will continue to age in bottle (check the label). LBV Port is a deep ruby red, extremely full-bodied and rich in the mouth and it possesses the particular style and personality of a wine from a single harvest.
Tawny Style: Wood matured
Tawny Reserve Port
Aged in oak, this wine boasts extremely elegant flavours, the perfect combination of the fruitiness of youth and the maturity of age, also apparent in their attractive médium golden brown colour.
Tawny 10 years old Port
A bit more developed than Tawny Reserve, this is a very similar wine but with the added assurance that it bears the characteristics of a ten years old Port.
Tawny 20 years old Port
With colours ranging from a reddish to golden Tawny, these exceptional wines are full of fruit and their flavours are more developed and concentrated due to the fact that the wine was aged in small oak casks. The extremely intense aromas and flavours are reminiscent of toasted vanilla and dried fruits, with delicate hints of oak.
Tawny 30 years old Port
Certain Ports are set aside to age longer in wood. The gradual exposure to air concentrates and intensifies the original fruit of these wines, creating more complex characteristics where honey and spices are touched with deep aromas of dry peaches, hazelnuts and vanilla.
Tawny 40 years old Port
This classification is given to the oldest Tawny Ports, wines that are marvellously concentrated and complex. Intense, they all but explode in the mouth, filling your palate with aromatic flavours that will astound your senses.
Colheita Port
These single vintage Tawnies are aged in cask for a minimum seven years and present a wide range of colours from golden red to tawny, depending on their age. Their bouquet and flavour also develop over time to create different style Tawnies.
Special categories of White Port
The most interesting White Ports are still those which, like Tawnies, have aged in wood and are similar as to their style and type of ageing, as per the following categories:
All these wines are golden, their colour being more intense in the older Ports, and they have aromas of dried fruit, crystallized orange peel, bread, honey and spices; their flavour is fresher, less full-bodied and persistent, but more elegant than a Tawny of the same age.
